The way a company sources its staff does vary according to the size of the company in question.
For this edition I will focus on procuring staff for large organisations. However, I am equally keen to assist smaller businesses and provide them with the best possible opportunities, and so next time I will be looking at other methods that owners or managers in smaller businesses can follow. (Progressive managers in larger organisations will also find ways in which they can benefit from utilising some of these approaches too.)
Procuring Staff For Large Organisations
Large organisations generally have prescribed ways of procuring staff which are normally more-or-less satisfactory and provide some good employees. However, these might not necessarily be the staff that will take the business successfully through some of the toughest economic conditions that any of us have experienced, and complacency on this front can be fatal to a business' long-term survival.
While there are multiple sources of good candidates, I would not be doing my industry justice if I didn’t now focus on the use of recruitment firms by larger organisations. After all, they operate in a multi-billion pound market and provide every legal skill set known. The key to making the best of recruitment firms is to know how to appoint the right recruiter. When you use a recruitment firm the success or otherwise of the process is very much down to the individual recruiter you deal with rather than the firm they work for. That said, the reputation of the firm may have an impact on the quality of the recruiter you can expect.
Many large companies have 'preferred supplier' systems detailing which recruitment firms can be used and while these might well do a reasonable job, especially when providing generic and readily accessible skill, there can be notable downsides. Quite often the process of selecting members of a 'preferred supplier' list involves negotiating low rates, with the result that the most effective and knowledgeable recruiters at the recruitment firms in question are allocated to more profitable tasks.
Typically, this can mean that the less effective recruiters working on the 'preferred supplier' contracts will only be accessing the market of candidates looking for a vacancy at that point in time, they will often have less market knowledge and they will be unlikely to have a network within which they can verify a candidate's skills and aptitude. In short, the whole quality of the process suffers, including the results: i.e. the person hired. And it's always important to remember that even the simplest positions become headaches when a 'bad fit' is employed. Only the right recruiter in the right market will know the good from the bad.
Selecting The Right Recruiter
Presuming, then, that you're reading this as a representative of a larger company and you do want the best possible employees, how are you going to pick the best recruiter?
Recruitment firms are probably beating a path to your door (all too frequently!), so you probably don't need to go to them. When you are contacted, make a note of any consultants who appear to genuinely know what they are talking about and have recruited in the industry you are in, and within the sector that you want to recruit for. Look for someone who can 'add value' when you're in conversation with them about your sector. In all likelihood, these will be the consultants who will have the strongest relationships within the candidate pool that you need to hire from.
That pre-selection made, thoroughly discuss your requirement with these recruiters. You will quickly know whether you have made a good choice from the quality of questions they ask you about the role, prospects and company culture. It will mean you will need to invest some time in this stage of the process, but finding one or two key recruiters who you can work with and who know your market will have longer-term rewards. You will find they can make a significant difference to the quality of candidate you can attract because if they are credible to you they will be credible in the market place, and they will represent your organisation properly too.
Conversely, work with a recruiter who doesn’t grasp what you are looking for or who isn’t paying attention to your requirements and the negative consequences can be serious. Will the candidates they contact in your name be treated well (whether or not you actually hire them), and if not, what harm is being done to your reputation? Has the quality of the candidates that have their CVs forwarded on to you been accurately researched and assessed?
You might save time by going to the first recruitment consultant who says they can deliver, but this will be a false saving if you end up interviewing the wrong people or if you hire someone but they've no real commitment and leave within a short space of time.
Paying The Right Price
I am as aware as anyone that the 'issue' with recruiters is that they charge fees for their work - even if they're only doing what anyone else providing services would do. Given this, using recruiters should only be considered if you don’t have time to take on the search for external candidates yourself, and/or if there's no-one for the role from within your existing team and/or if the implications and costs of leaving the position open for a period of time outweighs the cost of passing the resourcing to a recruiter.
Why am I saying this?!
I am saying that because I am keen for you to employ the best people possible. Remember that the fees that a recruiter charges are negotiable. The fee on the agreement they expect you to sign is up for discussion. Fine, but good recruiters are very likely to be highly sought after. As a result they will be less willing to negotiate and more prepared to move onto clients who will pay the right level of fees. That's why I say use a recruiter if you need to and can afford it, but if you're looking for a 'bargain recruiter' then you're probably better off doing it yourself.
If you are doing it yourself, then you need to learn to think like a (good) recruiter. How do they find candidates and what could you do so that you always have a pipeline of potentially strong candidates for your key positions?
Of course, you can't expect yourself to be the match of a full-time recruiter - after all, they're doing it full time! However there are many non time-consuming activities that you can have running in the background to ensure access to good candidates and (at the risk of loss of revenue to me and my businesses) going down this route means you can save yourself paying the recruiter's fees.
Next Time
I will cover these approaches in greater detail next time - and this information will be relevant to smaller business owners and managers as well as employers in larger organisations.
MAKING JOB DESCRIPTIONS WORK FOR YOU (PT 3)
So far we've established that to make a job description really effective it needs to include measures of success. We know that people generally don't change, and so we know that we need to recruit people who will meet our business requirements in terms of their behaviour right from the outset. The question we have to ask now is 'how do we measure behaviour?'
When I am asked to review job descriptions or when they are passed to my businesses to work on, we typically see the behavioural aspect covered as:
I will return to these three aspects of behaviour in the future because they are a vital part of the overall process. After all, as we know, people don't change and behaviours are usually repeated. However, the question we have to tackle before the interview stage is, how do we understand what the right behaviours are for our job's requirements?
The way to do this is to look at the desired outcomes we put together at the start of the process.
Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to look at one of the outcomes I require from a new recruiter.
The first 30 day outcome I set down was:
With this in mind, how will the person with the right knowledge and skills behave to demonstrate this? I'd be looking for someone who:
So, I now have an overall requirement that looks something like this (in part):
It is also worth remembering that once this work is done, you'll have the competencies around which you should be interviewing against. Therefore the interview itself becomes much more straightforward. The effort put in now saves time later.
Any 'nice-to-have' requirements should not be included in a job description. Those that you would be looking to provide training in should not be included as requirements but could possibly be added as additional skills that training will be provided for, to make your position more attractive than others openings the candidate might be looking at. (Remember, the best candidates are always in demand irrespective of the economic conditions.)
Following the approach outlined for the full requirements of a post will give you a complete profile for your ideal candidate. From here you can move on to actually looking for them.
Next Time:
Ensuring you're using the right means to attract the right candidate.
When I am asked to review job descriptions or when they are passed to my businesses to work on, we typically see the behavioural aspect covered as:
- The ideal candidate will be flexible.
- The ideal candidate will be a team player.
- The ideal candidate will be prepared to work very hard to achieve the goals.
I will return to these three aspects of behaviour in the future because they are a vital part of the overall process. After all, as we know, people don't change and behaviours are usually repeated. However, the question we have to tackle before the interview stage is, how do we understand what the right behaviours are for our job's requirements?
The way to do this is to look at the desired outcomes we put together at the start of the process.
Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to look at one of the outcomes I require from a new recruiter.
The first 30 day outcome I set down was:
"To be fully cognisant of our database and able to demonstrate an in-depth ability to perform searches and enter all conversations on it."Therefore what I need to think about is what knowledge and skills the person should be able to demonstrate to meet this requirement. A short-list might be:
- Knowledge of databases.
- Attention to detail.
- An ability to understand technical jargon.
With this in mind, how will the person with the right knowledge and skills behave to demonstrate this? I'd be looking for someone who:
- is comfortable using databases and inputting detailed information, and who is able to extract the information they require too;
- would naturally double-check their work to ensure that it meets the standards and is happy to ask when unsure;
- who is willing and able to talk to technical people and ask questions to ensure their understanding is right, and is able to explain the requirement back in a non technical manner.
So, I now have an overall requirement that looks something like this (in part):
"Within 30 days, the new recruit must be fully cognisant of our database and able to demonstrate an in-depth ability to perform searches and enter all conversations on it."I expect candidates to have specific knowledge and skills in order to achieve this:
- Knowledge of databases
- Attention to detail
- An ability to understand technical jargon
- they use databases, input detailed information and extract the information they require;
- they double-check their work to ensure that it meets the standards and will ask when unsure;
- they talk to technical people and ask questions to ensure their understanding is right, and are able to then explain the requirement back in a non technical manner.
It is also worth remembering that once this work is done, you'll have the competencies around which you should be interviewing against. Therefore the interview itself becomes much more straightforward. The effort put in now saves time later.
Any 'nice-to-have' requirements should not be included in a job description. Those that you would be looking to provide training in should not be included as requirements but could possibly be added as additional skills that training will be provided for, to make your position more attractive than others openings the candidate might be looking at. (Remember, the best candidates are always in demand irrespective of the economic conditions.)
Following the approach outlined for the full requirements of a post will give you a complete profile for your ideal candidate. From here you can move on to actually looking for them.
Next Time:
Ensuring you're using the right means to attract the right candidate.
MAKING JOB DESCRIPTIONS WORK FOR YOU (PT 2)
Last time we looked at improving the value of job descriptions by adding measures of success to them that the new hire can be judged against. However, that is only part of ensuring you know exactly what you are looking for. The next key criterion is to look at the behaviour you want the employee to exhibit.
Behaviour might seem particularly difficult to specify, but spending time on this and understanding the basic fundamentals of human nature will mean you'll have a model that with very little practice will ensure you are consistently making the best recruitment decisions possible.
It's Human Nature
It's fair to say that we are 'programmed': whether we like it or not, most of our behaviours are learned whilst in the womb to the age of seven. During our formative years our minds absorb everything that is going on around them; it is akin to being in a hypnotic state. Our interpretation of these lessons and how we behave as a result of them becomes programmed into our psyche and forms the core of our personalities.
I suspect we all know people that move from one relationship to the next but the next person has exactly the same incompatible traits as the previous one. Why do people do this? Because they have been 'programmed' to do so. Closer to home, we probably all have personal experience of situations where we've over- or under-reacted to something quite dramatically. We've looked back and regretted it and vowed to do better next time, only for next time to come along and for our reaction to be just the same - even though we know it's inappropriate.
The point is that behaviours we learned when we were in our formative years worked for us then. As we mature, these behaviours might well no longer be appropriate and we often know we must change them, but it's a real struggle to do so. Welcome to the unconscious mind!
A good analogy is that your mind is not dissimilar to a tape that has been pre-recorded, so irrespective of what you want to hear, you actually hear the same message and react in the same way.
Another way of looking at this is that our conscious mind can deal with five to nine pieces of information at the same time, whereas the subconscious has millions of pieces of information and interprets them all the time, based on your past experiences.
The good news is that the inappropriate behaviours and reactions sometimes change through experience, maturity and professional assistance. The bad news is that it can be very time-consuming to make this kind of change happen. The even worse news is that I've read social studies that demonstrate that people will repeat their behaviour and not change, something like 90% of the time.
In the meantime, you - the employer - need to have your focus on the success of your venture or project. For that to happen, you need to be able to rely on your new employee performing in the way you hoped when you first hired them.
The way forward for you as an employer is to understand and accept that people struggle to change and that hiring people in the hope they will change is always a mistake. (And even if they eventually succeed in changing, the process will have been time-consuming, frustrating and damaging to the company's overall morale.) You might want to take a more generous view of human nature, but your business can't afford that luxury!
What that means is that to ensure you hire the right person, you must first recognise the behaviour(s) that you require from that person if they are to be a success. You can then work on finding someone who behaves in that way.
Next Time:
Identifying the need for desirable behaviour(s) is one thing; working out practical measures is another!
Behaviour might seem particularly difficult to specify, but spending time on this and understanding the basic fundamentals of human nature will mean you'll have a model that with very little practice will ensure you are consistently making the best recruitment decisions possible.
It's Human Nature
It's fair to say that we are 'programmed': whether we like it or not, most of our behaviours are learned whilst in the womb to the age of seven. During our formative years our minds absorb everything that is going on around them; it is akin to being in a hypnotic state. Our interpretation of these lessons and how we behave as a result of them becomes programmed into our psyche and forms the core of our personalities.
I suspect we all know people that move from one relationship to the next but the next person has exactly the same incompatible traits as the previous one. Why do people do this? Because they have been 'programmed' to do so. Closer to home, we probably all have personal experience of situations where we've over- or under-reacted to something quite dramatically. We've looked back and regretted it and vowed to do better next time, only for next time to come along and for our reaction to be just the same - even though we know it's inappropriate.
The point is that behaviours we learned when we were in our formative years worked for us then. As we mature, these behaviours might well no longer be appropriate and we often know we must change them, but it's a real struggle to do so. Welcome to the unconscious mind!
A good analogy is that your mind is not dissimilar to a tape that has been pre-recorded, so irrespective of what you want to hear, you actually hear the same message and react in the same way.
Another way of looking at this is that our conscious mind can deal with five to nine pieces of information at the same time, whereas the subconscious has millions of pieces of information and interprets them all the time, based on your past experiences.
The good news is that the inappropriate behaviours and reactions sometimes change through experience, maturity and professional assistance. The bad news is that it can be very time-consuming to make this kind of change happen. The even worse news is that I've read social studies that demonstrate that people will repeat their behaviour and not change, something like 90% of the time.
In the meantime, you - the employer - need to have your focus on the success of your venture or project. For that to happen, you need to be able to rely on your new employee performing in the way you hoped when you first hired them.
The way forward for you as an employer is to understand and accept that people struggle to change and that hiring people in the hope they will change is always a mistake. (And even if they eventually succeed in changing, the process will have been time-consuming, frustrating and damaging to the company's overall morale.) You might want to take a more generous view of human nature, but your business can't afford that luxury!
What that means is that to ensure you hire the right person, you must first recognise the behaviour(s) that you require from that person if they are to be a success. You can then work on finding someone who behaves in that way.
Next Time:
Identifying the need for desirable behaviour(s) is one thing; working out practical measures is another!
MAKING JOB DESCRIPTIONS WORK FOR YOU (PT 1)
Last time we looked at when you should hire new staff. In this edition we are moving on to the role of the job description that traditionally accompanies a position.
By and large, a job description (or specification) describes the job and then sets out the qualifications, responsibilities and skills an applicant should have. Usually the applicants also have to be able to work well in teams, be good communicators, be IT literate and career oriented.
In the current environment generic job descriptions like this, with the information detailed above, will generate huge volumes of applicant CVs. All of these have to be read and responded to, or even interviewed.
That means the already challenging task of recruiting a new member of staff is becoming even more onerous. As a result the CVs pile up, unread, whilst you cope with the existing staffing levels and you and your team work ever-longer hours trying to manage. As morale suffers, you end up taking the CVs home on a weekend to review them all.
Review done, typically, you (or - if you're lucky - your HR department) then try to arrange interviews with the strongest CVs. At this point you find that these are the candidates that don’t stay on the market for long, irrespective of the overall job market, as other companies are also on the look out for the best staff.
So the process then starts again, the job description goes out and you wait for the next tranche of CVs with the resolution that you will run the process more quickly this time.
My job is to help you hire the people who will make a positive difference to your organisation and my advice is that you should view a job description as part of the hiring process but not as a key part. In reality it only provides a very rough filter at the outset.
The real key is to define what your expectations are for any new hire if they are to be deemed a success, at the very outset of the hiring process. You should have clearly defined and measurable measures for success, and you should have clear and measurable required behaviours too.
Measuring Success
The success measures should specifically cover your expectations after 30 days, 90 days and 1 year. There should also be success measures set for the end of the probation period, whenever you set it, so that the decision about whether to continue employing the person is not subjective but based on clearly defined expectations that have or have not been met.
By way of example, these are some samples of my expectations after 30 days and 90 days for when I hire someone to train as a recruitment consultant:
In 30 days:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Many people find this process of defining expectations challenging as it is a different way of looking at recruitment. However, if you put the time in at the outset your hiring and training processes will be congruent and effective and you will have made a major step forwards, towards minimising the risk of making a poor hire.
Next time:
Once you have worked out what success for a new recruit will look like, the next step is to look at the behaviours expected to ensure success and in turn how to measure them; and how then to apply this approach to job description design.
By and large, a job description (or specification) describes the job and then sets out the qualifications, responsibilities and skills an applicant should have. Usually the applicants also have to be able to work well in teams, be good communicators, be IT literate and career oriented.
In the current environment generic job descriptions like this, with the information detailed above, will generate huge volumes of applicant CVs. All of these have to be read and responded to, or even interviewed.
That means the already challenging task of recruiting a new member of staff is becoming even more onerous. As a result the CVs pile up, unread, whilst you cope with the existing staffing levels and you and your team work ever-longer hours trying to manage. As morale suffers, you end up taking the CVs home on a weekend to review them all.
Review done, typically, you (or - if you're lucky - your HR department) then try to arrange interviews with the strongest CVs. At this point you find that these are the candidates that don’t stay on the market for long, irrespective of the overall job market, as other companies are also on the look out for the best staff.
So the process then starts again, the job description goes out and you wait for the next tranche of CVs with the resolution that you will run the process more quickly this time.
My job is to help you hire the people who will make a positive difference to your organisation and my advice is that you should view a job description as part of the hiring process but not as a key part. In reality it only provides a very rough filter at the outset.
The real key is to define what your expectations are for any new hire if they are to be deemed a success, at the very outset of the hiring process. You should have clearly defined and measurable measures for success, and you should have clear and measurable required behaviours too.
Measuring Success
The success measures should specifically cover your expectations after 30 days, 90 days and 1 year. There should also be success measures set for the end of the probation period, whenever you set it, so that the decision about whether to continue employing the person is not subjective but based on clearly defined expectations that have or have not been met.
By way of example, these are some samples of my expectations after 30 days and 90 days for when I hire someone to train as a recruitment consultant:
In 30 days:
- To be fully cognisant of our database and able to demonstrate an in-depth ability to perform searches and enter all conversations on it.
- To be able to present a complete overview of the technical speciality they work in.
- To be able to have informed conversations with candidates in their sector.
- To have met the targets set, leading through the recruitment process from obtaining the role, submitting CVs and setting up interviews; and having basic control of the process.
- To be able to effectively present candidates to clients.
- To be able to plan the day effectively and unsupervised.
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Many people find this process of defining expectations challenging as it is a different way of looking at recruitment. However, if you put the time in at the outset your hiring and training processes will be congruent and effective and you will have made a major step forwards, towards minimising the risk of making a poor hire.
Next time:
Once you have worked out what success for a new recruit will look like, the next step is to look at the behaviours expected to ensure success and in turn how to measure them; and how then to apply this approach to job description design.
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